This study investigated how speech recognition in noise is affected by language proficiency for individual non-native speakers. The recognition of English and Chinese sentences was measured as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in sixty native Chinese speakers who never lived in an English-speaking environment. The recognition score for speech in quiet (which varied from 15%-92%) was...

The concept of language learning using technology has allowed both language instructors and learners to explore the effectiveness of the online learning approach. Such computermediated activities provide an online platform for ESL learners to further practise their language skills as their face-to-face contact learning hours are rather limited. Limited contact learning hours have an impact on E...

Although the operational scoring of the TOEFL iBT speaking section features the overall judgment of an examinee's speaking ability, the evaluation of specific components of speech such as delivery (pace and clarity of speech) and language use (vocabulary and grammar use) may be a promising approach to providing diagnostic information to learners. This study used an evidence-centered design appr...

This research was designed to compare the impact of culturally laden Task-based language Teaching (TBLT) and Content-based language Teaching (CBLT) on Iranian intermediate learners' Speaking improvement. Two groups of participants, i. e. the experimental and control groups, were used in this study. In the experimental group, task-based instruction for 20 intermediate students and in the control...

This study investigates a variety of rhythm metrics on two corpora of non-native spontaneous speech and compares the nonnative distributions to values from a corpus of native speech. Several of the metrics are shown to differentiate well between native and non-native speakers and to also have moderate correlations with English proficiency scores that were assigned to the non-native speech. The ...